... the Port Boca Grande Lighthouse is the original Gasparilla Island Light Station, which includes the keeper's house and an assistant keeper's house... both built over pilings sunk into the flat beach. They are the oldest structures on Gasparilla Island. The complex, built in 1880, is located off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Coast Guard built a new steel skeleton tower light on the island in 1966 and abandoned these old wooden structures. In 1971, following slow deterioration and loss of shoreline, a 265-foot long jetty was established and sand fill was added around the original site. Ownership of the Gasparilla Light Station was transferred from the Federal Government to Lee County, Florida in 1972. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and fully restored by 1986. Ownership was transferred again in 1988 to the State of Florida and the site has become a state park and museum.